Curiosity driven life
(Gunawardana Research Lab)
The DNA of a reverie, That catapulted a man in a convertible Driving down a dusty road in California, With no sunroof on top. You dreamed of samba dancing, The leading man, and the lagging maiden, Making rows that protract And curve and fit into a bona fide zipper. It was your dream that made The hard, easy; the […]
The DNA of a reverie,
That catapulted a man in a convertible
Driving down a dusty road in California,
With no sunroof on top.
You dreamed of samba dancing,
The leading man, and the lagging maiden,
Making rows that protract
And curve and fit into a bona fide zipper.
It was your dream that made
The hard, easy; the laborious, quick.
Counts into countless.
Unlike Whitcomb Judson
Who invented the trouser zipper,
You will be the one who made
DNA not just our inevitability
But also how inside a
Little transparent PCR tube
There are catalysts, that once
Sat on top of Old Faithful.
And I guess what you showed
To the world, was a higher
Fidelity than love, and it only takes
One gene to make breasts cancerous,
Cyanobacteria toxic, as
Evolution perfects God’s design.
The Olympus microscope,
Is now a little transparent tube, that grows
And grows, until the fire in the belly stops,
And the panorama becomes
Forever an alphabet of four letters.
The picture postcards from God,
Are now reads thanks to you.
We are foot soldiers of your battalion,
Wearing a white lab coat, priming fate.
How you made dads responsible,
Criminals locked up, and diseases coded.
And all it took was for Lilliputians
To extend their palms, and say,
I want to hold your hand.
Dr Dilantha Gunawardana graduated from the University of Melbourne, as a molecular biologist, and moonlights as a poet. He currently serves as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Botany, University of Sri Jayewardenepura. Dilantha lives in a chimeric universe of science and poetry. Dilantha’s poems have been accepted for publication /published in HeartWood Literary Magazine, Canary Literary Magazine, Boston Accent, Forage, Kitaab, Eastlit, American Journal of Poetry, Zingara Poetry Review, The Wagon and Ravens Perch, among others. Dilantha too has two anthologies of poetry, 'Kite Dreams' (2016) and 'Driftwood' (2017), both brought to the readership by Sarasavi Publishers, and is working on his third poetry collection (The Many Constellations of Home). Dilantha’s pet areas of teaching and research, include, Nitrogen Fixation, RNA biology, Phytoremediation, Agricultural Biology, and Bioethics & Biosafety. Dilantha blogs at – https://meandererworld.wordpress.com/ -, where he has nearly 2000 poems.
Curiosity driven life 